


Perspicacity

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst and Humor, Doggy Style, F/M, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:57:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a little sad, because, really? <em>Him</em> pulling something over on <em>her</em>? Not exactly likely. But she wants him to have his fun for now. She's content to let him think he could ever—<em>ever</em>—get her back for his birthday. For now, she's content to let him think that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-"Lives of Others" (5 x 19), but just meant to be a fun, off screen PWMP* piece.
> 
> *Porn with minimal plot.

 

  


He's hiding something.

He's trying, anyway, and for now, he's getting away with it. Because she's letting him. She's letting it spin out a little. Letting him get comfortable with it. Letting him think he's pulling it off.

It's a little sad, because, really? _Him_ pulling something over on _her_? Not exactly likely.

But she wants him to have his fun for now. She's content to let him think he could ever— _ever_ —get her back for his birthday. For now, she's content to let him think that. Because it's sad, but it's also kind of cute. He gets so flustered, and Richard Castle utterly and totally without game is one of her very favorite Richard Castles.

If she were mean—if she were interested in spoiling his fun right away—she'd have some notes for him. Notes on timing and subtlety. Because he's not just _physically_ hiding something (although, again, it's a little sad he thinks she doesn't know about the desk—about the false-bottomed drawer with the spring lock). He started with the mysterious phone calls and e-mails pretty much the day after his birthday. _Subtle._

Granted, she takes that as a sign of respect. That he's not so delusional that he doesn't know he'd need every single day of the seven and a half months until her birthday if he wanted even a _prayer_ of besting her. Every. Single. Day.

But he doesn't have a prayer, so she has some notes: Timing, Castle. _Timing._

If she's honest with herself, she's a little disappointed that he's being so obvious. It's like he hasn't learned a _thing_ from her in the last four years.

Because all the spinning in his desk chair? All the fiddling with the drawer? Every single time she lets herself into the loft, he's fiddling with it. How can he possibly think she hasn't noticed when the spring lock squeaks like crazy? Also, pro-tip, Castle: False-bottomed drawers make a distinctive sound when you slam them.

She's curious about that, actually. Not the drawer itself. She kind of assumes that the loft is full of hollowed out objets d'art. That the walls and floorboards are rife with hidey holes and all the furniture has an array false panels and secret compartments with arcane locks. She's stumbled across more than one, and he loves spying on her while she figures it out.

And she always figures it out.

But everything's been empty so far. Empty or as good as. He has a hundred and one places to hide things and the most scandalous thing she's found so far are ticket stubs from an AC/DC tribute band in a hollowed out copy of _Ulysses._ And what she found in that case is pretty much irrelevant. It's _way_ more fun to tease him about having a book like that on his shelf when he not only hasn't read it, he doesn't even _own_ a real copy.

But he's hiding something now. Even though he knows she always figures it out, he's in denial. He's hiding something in the desk. Third drawer down. Under the false bottom. And she's curious.

It's early. Seven long months until her birthday and he can't _seriously_ think he'll be able to keep a present from her for that long. Even if he could physically hide it—and he _can't_ —there is no possibility that he'd be able to keep his mouth shut for that long. No possibility at all.

So it's not her present. It's something else. Something he can fit in a desk drawer.

Her first thought is paperwork. That he's planning a trip or some kind of event and it's paperwork. But she can't put her finger in why he'd be mulling over something like that. Whatever it is, he has it out, like, all the time. Seriously. Every single time she's out of the loft for more than 15 minutes, there's that tell-tale squeak and that hollow thunk and him talking way too loudly to cover. Pathetic, really.

The thunk says it's not paperwork. It's something on the small side and solid. Nothing especially heavy, but not just paperwork.

 _That thunk._ It's what made her think "present" in the first place. It's what has her still thinking present. Maybe it is. Maybe it's her birthday present, and it's sadder than she thinks because _he_ thinks he can (a) physically hide it from her and (b) keep it a secret for seven months.

She's curious, but not curious enough to snoop. Not yet. Not directly. It would be . . . cheating.

She knows the combination. She had that figured out the third time she heard the tell-tale pattern of squeaks and he doesn't change it. She listens in every once in a while to confirm, and he's cocky enough not to change it.

She could just snoop and it may come to that, but not yet. Not quite yet.

Because he thinks he's pulling it off.

Because she _will_ find him out.

She'll make him give it away without even knowing it, and there's nothing not fun about that.

* * *

 

It's not just the drawer any more. It's been a week since he declared war—since he said he'd get her back—and things are developing quickly.

That surprises her. It makes her more than a little nervous. Whatever it is, if he's calling in favors already—if he's able to nail things down this early—it might be big. It might be really over the top, and the thought makes her squirm.

His birthday? That was big. But he's loves big. He's all about big. And he knows that she's doesn't. That she's not. He has to realize that she is _not_ about big at all. Especially after Christmas—after all that—he has to know that big is not her thing. That she's uncomfortable with big.

He does know. She's sure he knows. But he's such a kid. He gets carried away so easily. But he wouldn't . . . she doesn't _think_ he'd forget. She just can't imagine something _not_ big that would take up so much of his attention this early.

She might be worrying about nothing. Yes, he gets a flurry of phone calls. They're all from the same number, and he hasn't created a contact for it. He always excuses himself to take them and, really, how much more transparent could he _be_?

She thinks about doing a reverse look up. He snatches the phone up and turns away every time, but seriously, there have been like a dozen calls in the space of three days. She'd have to be trying _not_ to know the number at this point.

But she decides that's cheating, too. A reverse lookup is cheating. She wants him to give something away. She wants to make him talk. So she puts that on the snooping list and dismisses it.

Anyway, it might take care of itself. Whatever it is. He's not happy with the way things are shaping up, apparently. He scowls at the phone every time and he comes back with this pinched, annoyed look. It can't be going well and she'd almost feel sorry for him if this weren't war.

But it _is_ war and there are rules. So she takes no pity on him and she puts the reverse lookup on hold.

She waits, but not for long.

Soon enough, there are other phone calls. Other numbers and other excuses. He keeps changing excuses. It's a rookie mistake, complicating things like that. One explanation is a better cover. He should know that. He's seen her break enough idiots who failed to obey the law of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

He's not stupid. He's not _usually_ stupid. He's seen that happen enough over the years and he should know better. But he babbles about dry cleaners and charity drives and all kinds of nonsense and she supposes it's just the creative bent at work.

Whatever the new phone calls are about, whomever they're from, things are not going any better, it seems. He comes back to the bullpen after each new call, and he's trying too hard. He's trying way too hard to look casual. He's going for vaguely annoyed with the interruptions, but still casual.

He's not at all convincing.

Not convincing at all.

* * *

 

It's about two weeks out from his birthday when she starts to worry. Not about what he's doing. Not that it's big and she'll hate it. Well, she's still worried about that, because the phone calls keep coming and it really seems like it must be something huge and she may need an exit strategy. So she's still worried about that, but it's on the back burner.

Because she's worried about _him._ War or no war, she's officially started to worry about him.

It's not just the drawer and it's not just the calls. Not any more, though he's still hiding whatever he's hiding and the calls keep coming.

There's another new number and he says it's Paula. As if he doesn't have that stupid song for her ring tone. As if the contact picture for his agent isn't an extreme close up of her terrifying eyebrows as she advanced on him at an event and tried to snatch the phone from him before he could snap a picture of her dropping a shrimp puff down her own cleavage.

That alone worries her. Not the shrimp puff. Not even Paula, but the fact that it's such a terrible cover.

Because Richard Castle not having game—Richard Castle not being able to pull a thing over on her in the long run—that's one thing. But there's something else going on here. He's a bad liar, at least when it comes to lying to her, but he's not this bad.

He's distracted. And not just his usual crack-addled-toddler distracted. He's worn out and can't focus, even when he's interested. In a case. In writing. He can't focus at all.

It's taking its toll, whatever it is.

There's a new network of lines around his eyes and the furrow between his eyebrows—the one that used to visit after most of his mysterious phone calls—seems to have taken up permanent residence.

Even Lanie asks if he's got something on his mind. He snaps at her. It's not like him to take his life in his hands like that. Not with Lanie, anyway.

He apologizes, but Lanie's not the only one noticing.

He looks tired, and Jenny sends Ryan in with what looks like a tiny bag of weed and a handful of cheesecloth sacks. Ryan proudly presents them to Castle as his wife's "sleepy tea." He insists it's foolproof.

Castle grumbles a thank you. Whatever bothering him, even he doesn't have it in him to be an ingrate when it comes to Jenny.

* * *

 

He drinks the tea. She catches him drinking it in the middle of the night.

She _almost_ catches him hiding whatever it is he thinks he's hiding. She stumbles from the bedroom to the office, pulling on one of his t-shirts. The laptop is open on the desk and he he barely has time to close it and slam the desk drawer before she's spinning the chair around and him in it.

It's not the third drawer. He doesn't even have time to reach for that one, let alone mess around with the false bottom. So he slams whatever it is in the long drawer that spans most of the top of the desk. She makes a mental note to look as soon as he's asleep.

It's just looking, she decides. It's not snooping if he leaves it in a different drawer. An unlocked drawer with no false bottom. Then it's not snooping, it's looking.

It's totally not snooping, she tells herself as she crawls into his lap and turns her attention to tiring him out as quickly as possible so she can look. Not snoop. She wouldn't even look if she weren't worried about him.

She leans into him and recoils immediately. His breath is _foul_.

"God, Castle. What have you been _drinking_?" She tries to twist away from him, but he grabs her wrists in one hand and pins them behind her back. Her knees are trapped by the arms of the chair and she has zero leverage. It's a pretty impressive maneuver on his part.

Tiring him out may be more complicated than she anticipated.

"Jenny's tea," he says distractedly as his free hand travels up her bare thigh and under the hem of the shirt.

He leans in to kiss her neck. With a heroic effort that almost capsizes the chair and them with it, she jerks her head away.

" _Ugh._ It smells like feet and hopelessness." She kneels up in a vain attempt to get his mouth as far away from her nose as possible.

"Mmmmmm," he says noncommittally. He seems more interested in the fact that the stretched out neck of his t-shirt has fallen mostly free of her shoulder, leaving a large expanse of bare skin more or less at mouth level now. "Was hoping it would help."

"You're not . . . sleeping?" Her breath hitches as his lips travel down and inward from the prominence of her shoulder, nudging the fabric of the shirt lower and lower.

"Not so much. This is better than tea." He drags his teeth over the slope of her breast. "Better. You don't smell like feet."

She snorts. She tries to snort, but her skin is tightening under the moist heat of his tongue and she forgets to fight him even when he lets her wrists go. She forgets entirely to fight him because she's busy making her spine long and raking her fingers through his hair.

"How about hopelessness?" She manages that eventually, but his palms are dragging down her lower back to curve around her ass and dip between her legs, so she's not sure it's as effective a barb as she might have hoped.

"No hopelessness." He sounds a little testy. A little impatient. He's trying to get the shirt off her altogether now, and she's trying to get his off at the same time. There are just too many armholes involved and she doesn't blame him for sounding testy. He grabs her wrists again—one in each hand this time—and jerks her arms over her head.

"Hope-y." He frowns even as he says it. "Not hopeless. The other thing."

She should be fighting him, but it's funny. _Hope-y._ He has _no game_ and it's the funniest thing. He seems to have given up entirely on getting the shirt off. He lifts the hem and dives underneath. His lips land on her rib cage and he mutters against her skin. It's muffled and incoherent and the undulating fabric of the t-shirt stretched out in front of her is the has got to be the most ridiculous sight she has ever seen.

She idly wonders if Jenny's special tea actually _was_ weed and she has some kind of strange contact high. Whatever it is, she's too weak with laughter to fight him and when his mouth closes over her breast, she's too weak with something else.

He has her on her back on the desk before she knows it and she wonders where the t-shirt went. His and hers. And _Oh . . ._ weren't there pants at some point? There must have been pants for him, but he's her favorite person ever because he's taken care of it.

He's taken care of all of it with his mouth and the outrageously talented hands that make up for his total lack of game. And what he's doing right now with mouth and hands and economy of motion mean that the smell of feet and hopelessness are _not_ a problem at all so long as he stays where he is and keeps doing what he's doing right _now now now God now._

Maybe it makes her fickle, but _now_ she needs him to move. Now she needs for all of him to not be so damned far away down there. She needs him to _move_. Her hand flies out, wild and uncontrolled. It knocks into something and she hopes that wasn't one of his favorite mugs she just sent sailing off the edge of the desk.

"Jesus, Beckett!" He pops up, all of a sudden, like he's on a spring. "Ugh. It _does_ smell like feet."

"And hopelessness."

She's laughing, though she's not sure anyone would recognize it for that. She's a mess, because it's _funny_ and she needs him not to be so far away but she's can't seem to make any two parts of her work together to do anything about it.

"Castle," she snaps and she's pleased at how authoritative it sounds. She's pleased that he pops up again and she manages to snag a fistful of hair. She tugs and he comes along with it. Sort of. He doesn't seem to agree with her schedule or list of priorities.

"Want . . ."

"What, Beckett?"

He drags his mouth in a long curve up her body. One hand is lazily busy between her legs. It's delicate and precise for such broad fingertips. It's evil and he's driving her insane.

"Want what, Beckett?" he repeats as his lips find her chin.

She scowls. His breath is _awful_ and she wants him and what the hell is wrong with him and his stupid breath anyway?

"Feet!" She's frustrated and nine-tenths out of her mind and it's all she can manage.

He scowls back and they're going to have a talk about that later, because that is not ok and he knows it.

He knows, but he doesn't seem to care, because he's looking at her like she's a _problem_. Like she's the problem here.

He pushes off her body. He pushes back from the desk entirely, and her mouth drops open. She makes a noise that sounded a lot more outraged in her head. Outside her head it sounds a lot like C _astlePleaseCastle,_ but she must be mistaken about that.

He stands back and studies her and she is seriously working on the best way to do the most bodily harm when he grabs for her hips. Lightning fast, he grabs for her hips and flips her on to her stomach. Her palms hit the desk and _. . . well._ That works.

He grinds into her with short, hard thrusts and his teeth at her shoulder blade and that _definitely_ works. His hands roam over her hips and up to her breasts and down again and he's silent and _focused_.

 _Now_ he's focused. He's himself. This is fantastic and familiar. He's hers and he knows every right place she has. But he's like someone else, too. He's all hard, determined strokes and heavy hands and it _works._ Dear _God,_ it works.

He reaches down and the broad palm of his hand smooths over and down between her body and the desk. A single curse makes it out of him and it's too much. She swallows a curse of her own and pushes back against him again and again, and they're both gone. They're both out of their heads for who knows how long.

Not long enough. She's still shivering and limp when he peels his body from hers and gently eases her away from the desk. He makes himself tall and keeps clear of her face. She's absently grateful, though she can't really remember why as he steers her clear of the remains of the mug and the small pool of foul-smelling, rapidly cooling liquid.

_Oh. Right. Feet._

"Bet you're sleepy now, Castle." She means it to sound smug, but she's having trouble with her plosives. _Plosives. P_ s and things, if that's what you call them. She wonders why she knows such a big word, but can't make a _P_ sound. It's probably his fault. It's sounds like something that would be his fault. She wonders again what, exactly, was in Jenny's tea.

He laughs like he can hear her disjointed internal monologue and nudges her hip with his own. "Definitely sleepy. You, too?"

"Me too," she says and hates the grin she can feel taking over her face.

He holds the covers for her and she collapses in a heap. He waits for her to settle in and smooths the blankets over her. He gives a satisfied nod and starts to turn away, but she just manages to catch his fingers.

"Going somewhere?" She thinks it's suspicious. She's trying to make it suspicious, but she can't remember why.

"Feet," he says. "Gonna brush my teeth."

This seems like an excellent idea as her eyes drift close. "You're the best, Castle."

He snorts and says something about about reminding her in the morning, but she's already asleep.

 

* * *

 

She starts awake and the clock tells her it's been . . . _four hours?_ It can't be right, but the clock is stubborn. _Four hours_ and she hasn't so much as moved since he tucked her in. _Four hours_ and she still feels like she's weighted down with something warm and delicious and satisfied.

She makes her legs work, though. It's been four hours and he's been getting up with her lately. Sometimes he's up before her and that's just _wrong._ She swings her legs to the floor and dashes to the closet. She grabs one of his half dozen robes and shivers her way into it.

She casts a glance back toward the bed, but he's out. He's _out_ like he hasn't been in a couple weeks and she's glad. She remembers she's worried about him and she's glad he's sleeping now.

She pads soundlessly into the office and works her fingers under the long drawer. The track is bent. He'd bent it months ago in some minor rage because he'd shoved something into it—kitchen tongs or something equally stupid—that had caught on the underside of the desk and stuck the thing closed.

She presses her palms into the underside and lifts carefully. There's a single squeak and a loud chunk as the wheel hits the bent park of the track. She freezes, but there's only silence from the bedroom. She slides the drawer all the way out and peers inside.

It's empty.

There's a paper knife and his gorilla-head staple remover, and other than that it's empty. She runs her fingers over ever millimeter of it, inside and out, but it's empty.

It's empty.

  



	2. Chapter 2

* * *

There's a subtle shift after The Incident. She thinks of it as The Incident, complete with capital letters, and she wants to kill him for that.

He's not at the precinct the morning after the morning after The Incident. ( _Oh,_ she could just _kill_ him for that, except that every plot leading to his violent death begins with a replay of The Incident in her head and she never gets very far.)

He's begged off for the morning with some lame excuse. Ryan breezes in with a smile on his face and asks where he is. She snaps that she's not actually Castle's keeper and Ryan gives her a strange look. She mumbles an apology.

She feels lousy about it. It's not Ryan's fault. It's _his_. Castle's.

He has her thinking in capital letters and, actually, the shift isn't subtle at all. He's not subtle. He's _smug._ He's been insufferable for the last forty-eight hours. Like he knew exactly what she was up to the whole time. Like he knew and he turned the tables on her.

The minute she thinks it, she can hear him him in her head. She can hear him _snickering._ She can _see_ that delighted, maddening smile on his face as he insists that no, he turned _her_ on the table.

Heat licks its way up her face and over her collar bones. She catches Espo and and Ryan exchanging significant looks behind their file folders. Ryan's is upside down.

She spins away from her desk and spends some quality time at the water fountain waiting for the color in her cheeks to die down and revisiting the many creative ways in which she'd like to kill him.

He breezes in that afternoon and he's _so_ smug. Too smug, in fact. He's touchy-feely with her and trying too hard. She wonders when the circles around his eyes got so deep and dark. She catches a glimpse of him in profile and wonders how she's missed them, the dark purple smudges like thumb prints at the bridge of his nose.

Ryan catches sight of him and calls out a thank you as he crosses the bullpen to her desk. Castle grins and shoots her a hooded look.

She's so busy thinking how _smug_ he is _—_ about all the different and painful ways that she's going to kill him—that she misses the first part of Ryan's explanation.

"You should see it, Beckett, it's _huge_!"

" _What?_ " It slips out. It's loud and . . . scandalized. She'd like to kill him for that, too. For the word that pops into her head and the fact that there's no other word for it.

Castle presses his lips together and tries to look innocent. He tries and fails, and he is _so fucking smug_ that she is definitely going to kill him the first chance she gets.

"The basket that Castle sent." Ryan darts a confused look from her to him and back again. "Jenny could barely carry it. And it's got scones and those gross British 'digestive biscuits' that she loves." Ryan claps him on the shoulder. "Thanks, man."

"No, thank Jenny," Castle says, wide-eyed and sincere.

 _Mock_ sincere, though Ryan doesn't catch it. He runs a palm idly over an empty patch of her desk. _Definitely mock sincere._

"Her tea worked wonders."

* * *

Another couple of days go by, and she revisits the question of snooping.

What _is_ snooping, anyway, when you practically live with someone? When he's _so_ not stealthy and he thinks he is? When he _blatantly_ manipulates you with—admittedly fantastic—desk sex? Really, what is snooping when this is war?

It's more than just that, though. It's more than the fact that The Incident raises the possibility that she might— _might—_ have underestimated him a little. It's more than the fact that ever since The Incident she has some trouble concentrating in the presence of The Desk. Which she is definitely not capitalizing in her head.

It's more than all those things together that have her revisiting the question of snooping.

Ok, it's a _lot_ about that. A lot of it is about The Incident.

She's still reeling. She's still in denial, because she _never_ sleeps that hard, and he's clumsy at the best of times. These are not the best of times. He's been _really_ clumsy lately. His hips and shins and elbows are covered in bruises because he keeps walking into things, and how the _hell_ did she sleep long and hard enough for him to move whatever he's hiding in that damned drawer?

There's a moment—an actual moment—when she wonders if he could have drugged her. Or maybe Jenny's tea really does have some secret ingredient and she fell victim to the horrible fumes?

It's quite a moment. So. Yeah, it's _a lot_ about that. It's a lot about pride and the unsolved mystery. The Incident. The Curious Case of the Detective and the Desk Sex. It's about the fact that he was so _smug_ about it _._

But it's not _just_ that. Pride isn't the only thing that has her revisiting snooping.

She's worried about him.

That's not going away. It's getting worse.

He _really_ looks like hell and he's not himself. He's smug when he remembers to be. When he's trying too hard at work, he shoots her looks and pats the desk invitingly. But mostly, he's too quiet for too long, and his default lately is the thousand-yard stare. It's really not like him.

His theories, when he even has them—when he even bothers—are downright mundane. His heart isn't in it most of the time, and when it is—when he shakes himself like he suddenly realizes he's not keeping up his end of things—it's too much. It's manic.

Different manic. Not standard-issue Castle manic.

She has another moment where she worries that it's her. That he's bored. With the work. With them. With _her._

It's not a great moment. It sends her into retreat. It has her folding her arms and redefining snooping in the other direction. Because if he is—if he _is_ bored and looking for an out—she'll be damned if she'll turn to _that_ woman. She'll be _damned_ if she snoops.

That moment passes almost as soon as it arrives, though. Thank God, it passes, because it doesn't fit.

If anything, he's a little clingier than usual. He fishes for compliments, and when he's not slumped and staring into the distance, he's trying too hard. Not just with being smug. He's trying too hard with her.

She wrote it off to his birthday at first. The sudden rush of romantic gestures. She thought it was just the birthday thing. Part not wanting to be one upped, and part real gratitude. A real rush of warmth and feeling because he meant it when he said no one's ever done anything like that for him before. That breaks her heart a little.

So she wrote it off to his birthday, but it's been nearly a month. And anyway, it's not just the gestures. It's not just the little gifts and notes and surprises.

It's not just that he's bringing his A game every time when it comes to sex, though he is. He _really_ is. Every single time, and it's not like she minds. She mostly manages to keep a lid on the capital letters in her head, and she does not mind at all.

But it's a little much. It's a little ridiculous.

Because it's always great between them. Long, drawn out days and nights where she feels like she's going to snap. Quick and efficient and laughing when they're running late—they're running _so_ late—and he slips into the shower with her anyway. Exhausted and sloppy and comforting after long days and bad cases.

It's always great, and since his birthday, he's been trying too hard.

She doesn't _mind_ , but she's a little worn out with it. She's a big fan of his A game—a big fan—but she wouldn't say no to just the essentials if it meant they'd both get a little more sleep. Because the essentials are great, too. It's always great.

But it's all A game since his birthday, and he's not smug, then. He's not smug at all. He gives her these timid, hopeful looks. Like it's last summer again and he wakes up every morning afraid it'll be over. Like he's trying to earn her.

So she's not really worried that it's about her or about them or about _that._ Not for long, anyway.

But she's worried.

There's something going on with him, and she's starting to think it's _only_ with him. That it has nothing to do with birthdays or revenge. That maybe it has nothing to do with her at all.

It's not just the phone calls anymore. He starts skipping out on the precinct. She latches on to the lame, complicated excuses he makes up for not coming in with her. For ditching out in the middle of the day. For not showing up at all, even though he was supposed to.

She latches on to the excuses and tells herself that it has to be the birthday. It _has_ to be.

Otherwise he'd tell her. If there were really something going on with him, he'd tell her.

He's a confessor.

He is now that she knows what pushes his buttons, anyway. _Those_ buttons. Not the other kind.

Although sometimes they're the same kind. There is considerable button overlap sometimes.

But he's a confessor, and usually it's a matter of applying the right kind of pressure and then waiting.

But she's tried all the usual buttons and—nothing. All kinds of pressure and nothing. _Nothing._

She dangles things he's missed in front of him. She taunts him with cases and pranks and things Ryan accidentally says in his outside-his-head voice. She arches an eyebrow and says he should've been there. He's distracted and says he's sorry he missed it and—nothing.

She tweaks his ego. She stacks up files high and comments on fast they've been closing things lately. She only tries that one once. She makes a crack that they get things done when he's not underfoot and sadness flashes over his face.

It's just a second. Just a moment when his shoulders slump and there's the kind of sadness in his eyes she hasn't seen in a year and then he rises to the bait. He plays his part and says she might be solving more cases, but she's not having any fun.

And it's true. It's true and she only tries that one once.

She grits her teeth and tries guilt, because she's worried. She's really worried at this point and she just wants him to come clean with whatever it is.

So she drags into the loft. She overplays how tired she is. She goes into all the grim detail about the leads she had to chase down alone and every low life she spent the day with.

He makes a big deal of it. He makes a big deal of _her._ He draws a bath and works at the knots in her shoulders until she forgets that she's supposed to be working him. She's supposed to be getting him to confess.

But they fall into bed and he brings his A game and she forgets.

She tells herself that he wouldn't keep something from her. Nothing important. He usually can't even keep anything _unimportant_ from her. He's a confessor.

She tells herself he wouldn't keep it from her if there were really something going on. But she's tried all the buttons and—nothing.

She revisits the question of snooping.

* * *

By the end of the week, she goes from worried to flat out alarmed.

They fight.

He yells. Kind of a lot. Even when she yells back.

It's not unprecedented, but it's unusual. He gets sarcastic when he's pissed. He's cutting and self-contained and subdued, though she would never have thought it before.

She'd have thought he'd be one for dramatics, but he's not. Not when he's really pissed.

So the yelling is unusual.

But that's not what flips the switch. That's not what takes her from worried to alarmed.

She starts it. She's worried and he's not confessing and she picks a fight. She absolutely starts it, and part of her is satisfied—so satisfied—when he actually yells. When he storms off and she can hear him slamming around upstairs in the spare bedroom.

Part of her is _so_ satisfied that she's getting any reaction at all from him. And part of her is furious and worried.

She storms off to the laundry room. Opposite corners. She yanks open the dryer and pulls clothes out by the armful. She's pissed off and worried and she forgot the damned laundry basket. She pulls clothes out by the armful and it's all mixed up. It's his t-shirts and her workout clothes and she drops to the floor and starts throwing things into piles.

She balls up his sweats and hurls them at the wall. She drops to the floor and mutters a string of curses because it's hard to imagine anything less satisfying than hurling his giant, ratty sweatpants at the wall.

She pulls them apart. His things and her things. She kicks his away from her and folds her own. She snaps everything into vicious creases and makes one pile and another.

The piles grow and she can't remember the last time she took anything home. She wonders where the hell her overnight bag even is. She's pissed and worried and shocked as hell when one fat tear and another and another drop on to the fabric in her hands and spread, staining the bright green dark.

She's pissed and worried and then mostly just pissed because she's crying and he's looming in the doorway and that's not how this goes. They're still in time out. They should be. Because when they really fight, that's how this goes.

They're both too quick to wound and it's not worth it. They both know it's not worth it to let themselves say everything that bubbles up on the first edge of anger.

So they go to their corners and come back together when it's safer. When they each know what's really worth saying.

But it's hardly been ten minutes and he's standing there and that's not how this works.

Her head snaps up, and she's about to yell. She's about to pick up where they left off, but then she sees him. She really sees him, and his hands are hanging at his sides and he looks awful.

"Castle." It's a plea and she doesn't care. She doesn't care that she's crying.

"Kate . . ." He tips his head back against the wall.

He leans his back against it. Heavy. _Heavy._ She has the absurd feeling that maybe the wall can't take it. That maybe he'll push right through or it will topple or something. But he leans his back against it and slides to the floor. He crowds in next to her and rests his chin on her shoulder.

"Kate, I'm sorry." He whispers and in that moment, she goes from pissed to alarmed.

She shoves the laundry away with her feet and twists toward him. His eyes flutter open for a grateful moment and he scoots down to lay his head in her lap.

She runs her fingers over his forehead and the lines smooth a little. He sighs and works his shoulders. He settles into her.

"Castle, what's wrong?" she says when it seems like he's not going to say anything else. Like he's just going to apologize for a fight she started and curl up with her on the floor of the laundry room. Like this is how they work.

"Not feeling great," he murmurs. His eyes don't open, but he turns his face into the warmth of her palm. "Headache."

She swallows hard. She's alarmed.

He's a baby. He's a _huge_ baby when he's sick. He's not like this. There's nothing understated about him when he's sick, and now she's officially alarmed.

She swallows hard.

"You take something?" she asks softly.

He nods.

She slides her fingers behind his head. It's heavy against her hands and he lets out a tight, relieved sigh when she finds the knot and kneads.

"Should work soon. Thanks," he says faintly. "Thanks."

"Lot of them lately?" She hates how careful she sounds, but she's alarmed. "Headaches?"

"Couple." His voice is stronger. He's making it stronger and she feels the effort.

She feels his shoulders strain and his spine twist, and it's so much effort. He lifts one arm to hook around her neck and she just wants him to stop. He pulls her mouth down to his and his mouth is hot and the kiss is deep and it's so . . . skillful. It's his A game and she's alarmed.

She fights back. She takes his face in her hands and changes the game. She pulls her mouth from his and brushes light, upside down kisses at the corners. She nuzzles his cheek and traces his laugh lines with her thumb. He's surprised. His hand clenches in her hair and he's surprised, but she's relentless. She's alarmed and she's not going to let him run this time.

She slides her mouth over his cheekbone and hovers near his ear. "Let's take a nap."

" _What?"_ His eyes pop open. He looks more like himself than he has in weeks and her spine goes soft with relief, even through the alarm. He looks like himself.

"Let's take a nap," she says as she eases her knees out from under his head. "Your head hurts. I'm tired. Let's take a nap."

He wants to argue. He snags at her knee and curves his fingers around her thigh and he's really trying to bring his A game. She dances back and reaches down for his hand.

He lets her. Something gives and he lets her and her throat is tight. She wants to slam him against the wall. She wants to beg him. She wants to make him tell her. But he looks awful and she thinks it can wait. She thinks it can wait until they both get a little rest.

They stumble to the bedroom, laughing now and clumsy. She tugs her bra out through her shirt sleeve and he doesn't even bother with his usual Tex Avery appreciation. He helps her with her jeans and slips out of his own and they tumble under the covers.

She tries to roll away, but he reaches for her and she doesn't have it in her to fight him. Her fingers dig into the base of his skull and he groans softly against her neck. It's some kind of relief. She's worried. She's alarmed, but it's some kind of relief.

She feels his hand on her hip. She feels the slow drag of cotton up and up and the heat of his palm at her waist.

"Hey. We're napping," she murmurs.

He opens his mouth against the hollow of her shoulder and traces the line of muscle with the tip of his tongue.

"We're napping," he agrees as his fingers barely brush the side of her breast. "Napping."

She presses the heel of her hand hard into the knotted column of muscle at the back of his neck and it carries her closer. It slots her body against his.

She meant to let him rest. She meant for them both to rest, but his hands are warm and sloppy and intermittent on her body. His breath is deep and smooth and coming faster as her hips press into his. His eyes flicker open and closed. It's not his A game.

They're a lazy, awkward jumble of limbs. Their mouths don't quite meet on every kiss.

She nudges him on to his back and tugs his boxers off. He curses at her crossly. She shushes him and slaps his hands away when he tries to reach down between their bodies. He gives her a tired grin and surrenders. His hands fall to her thighs and come to rest.

She meant for him to rest, but this isn't his A game and she can't resist this version of them. Alarm rises on a wave and recedes.

 _This first_ , she tells herself. _This first and we'll rest and then he'll tell me_.

She kicks her way free of her own underwear and he mutters something about violence.

She tells him to shut up and sinks down over him.

He does. He shuts up.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

 

She catches a body.

He's still asleep when her phone buzzes. It's less than an hour after they drift off together. They're _both_ still asleep, but he doesn't even stir.

Not when the phone buzzes. Not when she keeps as much of herself as still as possible as she tries to reach the phone on the nightstand. Not when she finally gives up heaves at his arm and wonders what the hell makes him so _heavy_ when he's asleep. Not when she finally manages to roll out from under his arm and right out of the bed.

He doesn't stir.

That's not unusual. He's lousy at getting to sleep a lot of the time, but once he makes it, he's a bitch to wake. It's not unusual and she shouldn't have to tell herself that.

She shouldn't need the press of his ribs against her palm. She shouldn't need them rising and falling and rising again to reassure her. It's not unusual, but her mind is still fuzzy with sleep and sharp with alarm.

He doesn't stir when she bumps into everything there is to bump into in the dimness of the bedroom. When she's scooping up every piece of clothing she can find in the dark and runs her shins and her knees and her toes right into every possible thing. She casts a dozen anxious glances toward the bed, but he doesn't stir.

The phone starts up again and she grabs it in mid-buzz. Her big toe connects solidly with the bed frame. Pain zings up her leg and she can't quite keep the curse between her teeth.

He stirs. Of course _that_ rouses him—a four-letter word—and she goes still. His lips burr faintly and his head lolls from side to side before he settles again, mashing his face further into the pillow.

"Language, Kate," he mutters. The corner of his mouth curves up. His whole face smooths out as he dips back into sleep.

She limps toward the office with the armful of clothes and eases the bedroom door shut behind her. She spills the pile of clothes on to the desk and drops into his chair. A shiver runs through her as her palm connects with the desk. Even now. Even through sleep and alarm and sheer pissed-offed-ness that it's a fucking body, a shiver runs through her.

She stabs the call-back button. She doesn't bother with the voice mail that came in while her shins were seeking out every single piece of furniture.

She knows it's Esposito. She knows it's a body.

Except it's not a body.

It's _two_ bodies and Lanie answers Esposito's phone and there goes some half-formed idea that she misses immediately.

A half-formed idea that she'd sit this one out. That she'd ask Esposito and Ryan to take it and let her life come first. That she'd let _their_ life come first just this once. Because she wants this settled. Whatever's going on—whatever he's not telling her—she wants it out in the open between them.

But it's two bodies and she snaps at Lanie that she really didn't need to know that Esposito is in the shower.

Lanie laughs and says Kate's just bitter than they have better timing than her and Castle.

"He's hiding something." She blurts it out, and her hand jerks the phone away from her ear. Away from her mouth, like that will take the words back.

" _Castle?"_ She laughs again. "Still? _Man's gonna give himself a heart attack."_

"You _know?"_

Her voice sounds unfamiliar. Utterly alien, and she can't tell if it's loud or soft or ringing or hollow. She can't tell if she's shouting. There's no answer from Lanie right away. She can't tell if she's actually said anything at all.

" _I don't . . . ._ know _anything,"_ she says after a long minute. An eternal minute.

The ME's voice is careful all of a sudden. Still amused, but careful, and Kate would gladly kill her right now. Not right now. Two minutes from now. Right after she turns her best friend upside down and shakes out everything single thing she knows. _Then_ she'd gladly kill her.

"Lanie."

She hears it clearly this time. She hears her own voice absolutely clearly and she _hates_ it. She hates the rolling wave of uncertainty. The shifting pitch and unsteady note it ends on.

She hates the fear.

They've just been introduced. It's the first minute she knows. That she's not just worried. She's not just alarmed. She's _afraid_ and she hates it.

" _Kate . . . hang on."_ Lanie hears it, too. She hears the fear, and there's no trace of amusement in _her_ voice now. Not a trace.

Kate sets the phone face up on the desk. Her fingers skate down the surface of the drawers to her left. She vaguely registers the sounds of her friend moving around in the distance. She hears the hiss of the shower and Esposito's voice scaling the heights of annoyance in the background.

She pulls open the third drawer. It's nearly empty. There's a handful of change. Some ticket stubs and some wadded receipts. Like he's in the habit of unloading his pockets every once in a while and that's it.

It's odd. It's an odd experience. Her fingers roam over the bottom—the false bottom—from corner to corner and it only takes her a second to find the seam with her fingers.

But it's odd. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she's critical. It's a second-rate example and she'd expect him to have nothing less than top of the line. It's nearly empty and he should know better. He should know that nothing grabs the attention of a would-be snooper like a nearly empty drawer.

She lets her palm test the weight of the spring. It squeals, but she doesn't flinch. She's so far past caring whether or not he hears. Whether or not he wakes up. Whether or not he catches her snooping.

She lifts her palm and depresses the spring the right number of times. She lets it recoil against her fingertips and presses again. The second number. She waits for it. Full resistance coiling up through every joint. She lets out breath and makes quick work of the third number.

Nothing happens. _Nothing._

Lanie's voice rumbles back up from the hard surface of the desk. It's louder now. She's talking over Esposito. He's still railing in the background even as Lanie cuts him off with a few sharp words and turns her face back to the phone.

" _Kate?"_

She hears it. The sound of her own name in Lanie's no-nonsense tone. She sees her own fingers against the pale wood of the false bottom. She feels the resistance of the spring. All her senses seem to be in working order, but it's like everything is happening in its own little world. Private little boxes that don't touch each other.

" _Kate? You still there?"_

The little worlds break down and everything rushes together. She can hardly hear Lanie over the fury pounding in her ears. She cannot _believe_ him. She's going to kill him. If he's not dying—if he doesn't have a brain tumor or an aneurysm or something else life threatening—she is going to _kill_ him. She might kill him even if he does.

She leans on her palm. She goes through the sequence again. The date Alexis spoke her first word. _Denouement._ Because it wouldn't be anything as simple as a birthday. Not with him. She goes through it again, fast this time, even though she knows it won't make a difference.

Nothing happens. _Nothing._

"He changed it," she says flatly. "Lanie . . ."

She trails off. The name is all she has to carry the weight of the last few weeks. It's all she has to carry the worry and frustration. Anger now, too. Anger and fear and her friend's name is all she has to carry it.

" _Kate. You listen to me right now."_

She does. She listens.

Lanie's voice is calm and firm and a little impatient. It's everything her own voice isn't right now, and Kate has never been so grateful to have her. She's never been so grateful that the two of them are so different and she has to bite back an apology for wanting to kill her two minutes ago.

She doesn't say anything, but Lanie knows anyway. She knows she's pissed off and afraid. She knows she's listening.

" _All right,"_ she says crisply. Kate hears the rasp of fabric against the phone speaker, like she's putting on clothes. _"Now I know you won't just sit this out, so here's what's gonna happen. Javi's got the scene and Perlmutter's already there working on body number two. Body number one is on its way in, so you and me? We're gonna meet me at the morgue and_ we _are gonna talk."_

Kate pushes up from the desk and makes her way back to the bedroom door. She cracks it open.

She can just make him out in the spill of light from the office.

He's still asleep. He's still heavy and out of it, but the ease is gone. His arms are drawn in now and he's frowning into his own fist. He's already kicked the sheets into a violent tangle around his calves.

She's glad. She's glad he's still asleep and meanly glad that he looks worried. Even if he's truly, madly, deeply _out_ he looks worried and she's glad she's not alone in this.

She doesn't want to leave. She wants this settled.

But she has to go. She has a body. _Two_ bodies. And right now killing him—killing him whether he's already dying or not—seems like a perfectly reasonable way to settle it.

She has to go, so she'll go.

* * *

 

They deal with the body first. Lanie presses her lips together and rolls her eyes but doesn't comment. She just takes her friend through what she knows about the scene and the findings from her preliminary exam of the first body.

The vic is a male in his early 40s who tumbled—naked—out of an old upright deep- freeze a couple of would-be artists were hauling away from an illegal dump. There's no ID, obviously, and no readily apparent cause of death. Lanie's first pass turns up nothing but a small patch of needle marks on his abdomen.

"Probably means he's diabetic, though. That'll help with the ID and now we wait on the blood work." She slaps the clipboard down.

"What do we have on the second vic?" Kate ignores her friend's heavy stare.

"Didn't find her until they thought they were almost done with the scene. That's why she's still there. Female. Early 30s, no obvious COD, but I hear the smart money's on murder–suicide."

"See?" Kate turns angrily on her heel. " _That's_ why I have to be at the scene. Because they're like a bunch of little sociopaths. Because they _bet_."

"Girl, they bet when you're there. They're just _quiet_ about it." Lanie snaps her gloves off and dumps them. The biohazard bin shuts with a clang. "And that's _not_ what's bugging you. So spill."

Kate folds her arms. She turns her back on her friend. This is a bad idea. A _bad_ idea.

It's between them. Whatever it is, it's between them.

"I should go."

She's surprised to hear herself say it. She's surprised to see Lanie nodding. She's surprised when Lanie stops nodding. She wonders with a giddy rush of almost-laughter whether there's anything that _wouldn't_ surprise her right now.

Lanie's eyes narrow suspiciously and she has her answer. _That's_ not surprising.

"Go where?" Lanie folds her own arms, mirroring Kate's defensive pose. "The scene? Or home?"

Kate opens her mouth and closes it again.

"Only one right answer, Kate," she says mildly.

"The loft." She wonders if her lower lip is actually pushing out. She wonders if her petulant, 14-year-old self has somehow traveled through time and landed in her body here and now. Because that's what it feels like. She's pissed off and scared and not sure of one single thing in her life, and that's exactly what it feels like.

"Half credit for that." Lanie shakes her head. "You should go home—to the loft—but first you should tell me about it."

"I don't . . ." Her shoulders slump and she bangs her head gently against the wall behind her. She feels like a mess. A tight, twisted, knotted mess. "I don't even know what to tell."

"Whatever's gonna keep you from doing anything stupider than whatever you're thinking right now." Lanie settles on to a stool like she knows this is going to be a while. She lets a little of the gentleness back in and adds, "Whatever you want to tell me, Kate."

"He's being _weird_."

The words practically explode out of her, but Lanie laughs. It's rich and warm in the cold stainless room and Kate feels a few of the knots break up.

"It's _Castle,"_ she says when she has her breath back. "Define weird."

But it's already spilling out and Kate hardly hears her. She paces the length of the autopsy table. She paces. Back and forth and back again, and it all comes out. The phone calls and the stupid drawer. The lies—really bad lies—about who's calling where he's going all the time. How bad he looks and the fact that he's not sleeping. She's a few syllables away from seriously over-sharing about The Incident and only just manages to reel that back in before she's off on every possible worst-case scenario.

She doesn't cry. She doesn't even _feel_ like crying and it's shocking. It stiffens her joints and everything running through her is cold. She's absolutely dry-eyed and her voice is steady as every terrible thought she's had in the last few hours—the last few _weeks_ —spills from her.

There are so many. There's just so _much_ that she realizes that she's been thinking about it for a while. That she's known for a long time that this isn't about birthdays and retaliation and one-upping. The story's been writing itself in the background for a long while now. All the ways she might lose him. All the ways she _could_ lose him.

Lanie is quiet the whole time. Her eyes follow Kate up and down the length of the morgue. They watch her hands play over the sterile instruments and fiddle with the cord for the blinds. They follow and she waits until the last words sputter out and Kate comes to rest. Something like rest.

Lanie watches her another moment. She raises her eyebrows in inquiry. Kate nods back. She's done. She's _done._

"So he's not sleeping. He's hiding something. And he yelled at you . . ."

"He _apologized_ , Lanie," Kate cuts in.

"He apologized." Lanie ticks that off on a finger alongside the others. "We'll leave why _that's_ weird for another time."

"And he's having headaches. It's . . . he's . . ." she makes a frustrated noise. Lanie gives her a look that shuts her up. She folds her hands hard against the pitch and toss of nerves in her stomach and waits.

"He's having headaches," Lanie repeats levelly. "And you jump to brain tumor?"

" _Or_ aneurysm!" Kate supposes it would sound defensive if it didn't sound so _stupid_. She feels a single coil of worry loosen inside her. It sounds _stupid_.

"What do you think he's hiding . . . I mean the actual _thing_ he's hiding." Lanie holds up a hand to fend off the second wave her paranoia. "Small enough to fit in a desk drawer. Something he's nervous about. Something that's keeping him up nights and distracting him."

"I don't _know,_ Lanie. He moved it and then he changed the fucking combination and . . .I don't know. Medication?"

"Kate, I'm cutting off the crazy right now." She can hardly keep the amusement out of her voice. "We are done with the crazy."

Kate's urge to kill her best friend rises up again, but a smile comes with it. She can't help thinking that Castle would love it. An ME murdered in her own morgue. She thinks about how she'd cover it up. How they'd mess with the evidence and get away with it.

Lanie sees the smile and ignores it. She goes on. "He's not dying. He doesn't have a brain tumor. He doesn't have an aneurysm. It's not medication. So what do you think he's hiding? What did you think at first?"

"A present," she says sullenly. "Something to do with my birthday anyway."

Lanie gives her that look again. That pitying look that says she's missing the most obvious possible thing. That look she hates. "Your birthday's in November."

"I _know_ that." She throws up her hands. "That's why I didn't think . . . that's why I thought it had to be . . ."

"Do _not_ say medication," Lanie says sharply. She takes a deep breath and goes on. "What comes between now and November?"

Kate stares at her blankly. Lanie raises her eyes to the ceiling and mutters some kind of prayer for patience. Someone must answer it, because her voice is calm and steady again. "What's coming up soon?"

"Nothing!" Kate throws up her hands. "There's Christmas and Valentine's Day and his birthday and my birthday and the whole damned thing . . . _Oh._ May. It's May?"

"It's May," Lanie confirms. And she's grinning. She's _really_ grinning.

"So . . . a year. Would he . . . Do people do that? Anniversary presents?"

Lanie's grin dissolves. "It's sad that I have to tell you this, but yes. People do that. Richard Castle? Richard Castle definitely does that."

Kate chews a fingernail. She's still missing something. "But why would he be so _weird_ about it? Why would he do something big and stupid for some kind of anniver . . . "

She stops. _Oh._ It's May. A year. An anniversary. And . . . _Oh._

Lanie watches her. She catches her eye and nods encouragement, but no.

No.

_No._

"It's not that." She sounds calm. She thinks she sounds calm, but she also sounds really far away even though the sound is, theoretically coming from somewhere roughtly midway between her own ears. She pushes off the wall and paces the length of the autopsy table. "Doesn't fit."

"He's hiding something. It fits in a drawer. It goes thunk." Lanie's head travels back and forth along with her. "It's _May,_ " she adds as though that's case closed.

"And the phone calls? Ditching out of the precinct?" Kate rounds on her. She still sounds calm. Probably.

But she knows what Lanie's going to say. She knows it'll sound convincing. It's what Lanie does. She takes crazy things and makes them sound convincing.

"Plans, Kate." She draws out the _a_. "It's Richard Castle. It's not like he's gonna drop it in your latte one morning."

 _Damn_. It sounds convincing. Because it's essentially what she was thinking in terms of her birthday. Only the timeline was off. Lanie's timeline isn't off. 

"But why would he be . . ." Something's not right about it. "Why would he be so nervous about . . . _that?_ "

"About asking you to _marry_ him?" Lanie gapes.

"Yes," she shoots back defensively. Something's not right, but she can't think with Lanie and all her convincing-sounding crazy. "He does it, like, all the time."

"All the time. He asks women to marry him all the time." She shakes her head.

"Well at least twice. That I know of," Kate says weakly.

"He's never asked _you._ "

And there it is.

"No." It's quiet the first time, but not the next or the next. Inside her head or out. "No. He's never asked. We've never even talked about it."

"Doesn't mean he hasn't thought about it." There's a hint of warning in Lanie's tone now. "Doesn't mean he's not . . ."

"No," Kate cuts in. She pulls her lip between her teeth. "It's not a ring. He's not . . . that's not it."

 _No_.

Lanie's crazy is convincing, but that's convincing, too. The _No_ is convincing.

Because they haven't talked about it. Not once. And it's . . . well it's . . . _something._ It's says something not great about the two of them that it never occurred to her. That it probably _has_ occurred to him. Yes. She knows that it has occurred to him and that . . . it says . . . _something._

But now that her heart is beating again and her voice is coming from the right general area, the _No_ is convincing, too.

"No," she says again.

She looks up. Lanie opens and closes her mouth. She's biting her tongue and Kate's grateful for it. She's grateful for a lot.

"Well, whatever it is, it's not a tumor or an aneurysm or a brain-eating virus." The ME's tone is careful. She's not conceding and they both know it.

"Could be that last one." Kate lifts her eyebrows.

Lanie tilts her head like she's considering it. "Smart money's on the last one."

They both laugh a little, but it's not entirely easy.

Lanie breaks the silence. "So, what now?"

"Now," Kate says slowly. "I call Javi and ask him to take . . ."

"He's on it." She waves it away. "Told him you weren't coming."

"Lanie!" She exasperated. She's grateful. It's another thing to be grateful for.

But Lanie already turning away. She's already reaching for another pair of gloves and eyeing up the vic. "Go home, Kate. And if you let him down, let him down easy."

"Shut up." Kate waves a warning finger behind her as she pushes through the door.

"And if you _don't_ let him down," she calls after her, "You call _me_ first. Not his mother. Not little Castle. Not your dad. You call _me._ "

"Shut. Up."

* * *

 

She slips into the loft. It's easy. The key turns smoothly and the hinges glide and it's easy. She's just never done it before. She knocks or sticks her head in and announces herself.

And when it's too weird to knock—when she's just run down to get the mail or save the delivery guy a trip—she makes a bunch of noise and he gives her any one of a dozen exasperated looks

Because he gave her a key and she practically lives here, but she still knocks. She still announces herself and makes noise like it's his space and she might not be welcome.

But tonight she slips in. She ditches her shoes on the mat and shuts the door with a soft bump. She brings her fist down on the hall table and noiselessly releases her keys.

It's dark. Even though it's early, the whole loft is dark except for the soft glow of the light above the stove. His office door is half open and that's dark, too.

She thinks he might be asleep. He might still be asleep and she half hopes he is.

They need to talk. He needs to tell her what this is and he won't want to. He's been going to some ridiculous lengths not to talk. And even though she needs to know what this is—she needs to have this _out_ —she half hopes he's asleep.

But only just half and that's better than before. Better than earlier. She knows what it's _not_ now, and that makes her steady. It carries her through the living room and around the corner into the office.

The bedroom door is closed, but there's another sliver of light at the bottom. He was up at some point.

She eases the door open and peers around the edge. He's sitting up in bed. Kind of sitting up in bed. The laptop is open on a pillow across his knees, but it's listing hard to starboard. His head is tipped back, a dark interruption of the geometric pattern of the headboard. He's out. He's _out_.

Her heart skids to a stop, but just for a second. Just for a _second_. She knows what this _isn't_ now, and he's just asleep.

His jaw falls open and he snorts noisily, as if to emphasize the point. He's not _dead_ , he's just asleep.

She opens the door wider and creeps in. He looks better. There's color in his cheeks and his eyelids are at least a lighter shade of purple.

She stands at the foot of the bed, undecided. They need to talk, but he needs to sleep, and right now at least, that doesn't feel like an excuse. It doesn't feel like she's hiding. It doesn't feel like she's making noise and pretending like this is just his space.

He jerks in his sleep. His head twitches to the side. He winces and she remembers the knots under her fingers. They make her decision for her.

He needs to sleep.

She reaches for the laptop and eases it off the pillow. She presses the lid down and winces at the loud click, but he doesn't stir. He's out.

She relaxes a little. He does this all the time. He used to do this all the time. He'd fall asleep with a book in his lap and never wake up when she manhandled him into place. She knows if she gets her arm behind his shoulders, he'll slither right down the headboard and on to the pillows. She knows she can clamber in next to him and he'll never even wake up.

It's early, but a few hours with Lanie and her convincing-sounding crazy have really taken it out of her. Early sounds good. They _both_ need to sleep.

She grabs the pillow off his lap. His fist comes with it. It flops to rest at his side and something tumbles from his fingers. Light from the bedside lamp glints off it and everything comes together. Everything falls into place and she knows exactly what this is. Exactly what all of this is. 

It's not a ring.

He's not dying.

It's a pair of squared off wire-frame glasses and she just might kill him.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

It's calming.

He's sleeping in the next room, and she has work to do. A case to put together. A story to tell.

After the last month, it's calming, and even sitting at The Desk can't break her concentration. Not for long, anyway. She has work to do.

Esposito checks in. The female vic has a distinctive tattoo, and the guy was definitely diabetic. They have tentative IDs awaiting confirmation from next of kin, but everything so far points to one of the would-be artists knowing more than he gave them in the initial statement. For a weird one, things are coming together quickly.

Maybe a little too quickly.

Ryan, at least, has time to spare for some pointed apologies about _interrupting her evening._ It's color commentary from the background and Esposito isn't shutting him down. Esposito isn't even ignoring him and talking over him. Esposito is, in fact, smiling wide enough that she can _hear_ it through the grim details of the case he's relating.

She revisits the possibility of killing Lanie But it's not practical. Not tonight, anyway.

She can't kill Lanie without Castle to help her hide the body. She doesn't _need_ him, of course, but he'd never forgive her for doing it without him. And on the other side of _that_ equation is the reality that depending on how his version of the story shapes up, she very well might have to kill Castle. Which she can't do without Lanie's back up.

She could kill them both in just the right sequence, but she's tired and it sounds like a lot of trouble, so they're safe for now. For now.

"Calming" might not be the right word for what she's up to. For how it occupies her mind. It's work, though. And work is good. Work is better than the alternative.

Her nerves are still raw and dregs of fear scrape through her veins even now. Even while she fights them like she always does. Even while she works. She dissolves them with facts.

But even with facts stacking up and the story coming together—even with it building and building—there are gaps, and she can't help getting to know the fear. It's barely three hours old and she knows it all too well already.

He's not dying. She knows that, too. But there are still so many ways she could lose him. He's a _writer_. He's slow and clumsy and he doesn't _think_. And even if she kicked him out—even if she chained him to his desk and told him that his days of playing cop were over—there are still so many ways she could lose him.

They're all stupid. Every one of them is stupid, and she has a headache of her own. A headache just for her that threatens whenever she slows down.

So she doesn't slow down. She works.

It's not hard to keep going. To keep pushing through. She gets it down on paper. One detail and another and another and nothing is hard now that it's not snooping.

And it's not. Now that she knows exactly how _stupid_ it all is, it's not snooping. And she's a cop. It's all completely legit. It would stand up in court and whatever his story is, she has a professional obligation to _show_ him exactly how stupid he's been.

Not professional. Personal.

_Girlfriendial._

Oh _God._ That's him. That's worse than The Incident or The Desk or both of them together. It's so _him._ But it's stuck in her head now. She has a _Girlfriendial_ obligation to show him how _stupid_ he's been for the last month and how crazy he's made her.

Professional. Personal. Girlfriendial. _Whatever._ She doesn't slow down.

There's no point in bothering with a reverse lookup of the phone number she knows. The first one he was so pathetic at hiding. She calls just calls it.

It's after hours, of course, but she gets her confirmation—an answering service for a suite of doctors. There's a name she recognizes. A business card or a name on his voice mail. Maybe some alert that popped up on his phone?

That's it, actually. An alert. She remembers.

He slept in the day after his birthday. So did she. But for her, sleeping in is getting up and checking her messages. Checking emails and getting in some kind of workout before she crawls back in bed and dozes. Before she lets him find her there and think she never left.

But that's not how it went the day after his birthday. His phone had gone off early. Early for him, and she wasn't actually up yet. The champagne had been good, and there'd been a lot of it. A _lot_ of good champagne and after . . .

 _After,_ he'd brought his A game.

It shouldn't have surprised her. He was _intent._ He was serious about unwrapping her even before. Even before the reveal. Before he started looking at her like that. Like no one had ever done anything like that for him.

And after? _After._

She's not sure why she thought the brace would matter. Why she thought that painkillers and one unbending knee would have anything to do with him taking her apart again and again. Reducing her to heat and sensation and unstrung words, even though she'd meant to . . .

She'd _meant_ to . . .

She'd had every intention of it being _his_ night. But she'd put Martha in charge of the bar and there was a _lot_ of good champagne and he's good with his mouth in so many different ways and he kept _looking_ at her like that.

It got away from her. Things got away from her. _After._

So she'd slept in the day after. _Really_ slept in. Warm and long and loose jointed against him. Caught in the gravitational field of Castle at rest. Gladly anchored and at rest herself. The two of them still, yet spinning together like that could be it forever. Like that could be their perfect, endless night.

And then, his phone.

She hates it. The Enterprise red alert for every single thing on his calendar. It's loud, it's obnoxious, and even though she lives her life among wall-to-wall sirens, it makes her jump every time.

She remembers it now. His phone on her nightstand. How it wound up there in the tipsy confusion of him undressing the both of them. Arcane couture fasteners, painkillers, some fancy knot in his tie. Champagne and all, he'd stilled her body against his and undressed them both.

And his phone ended up on her nightstand. She remembers cranking her head and shoulders around as far as she could without dislodging him and the violence of the stupid alert carrying the phone farther out of reach. She remembers seeing the name—eventually seeing it when she gave up and poked him in the side so she could just grab the damned thing. She remembers thinking the name sounded Japanese.

She even asked about it, because she was reaching for the phone and he was reaching for her and by the time she thumbed it off—by the time she asked about the name—his talented mouth was at it again. He was seeking out every mark he'd left the night before. Making new ones. Making sure there wasn't a single lonely path on her body.

But he answered. Sort of. She remembers now. A bad Raul Julia impression from some courtroom thriller. _Doctor_. He'd added _Doctor_ even though the alert was just a last name.

And there it is now. Doctor and the same name on the tongue of a bored woman in a call center God knows where.

An ophthalmologist. That's where the timeline starts.

He missed the appointment. It would have been something routine. An annual exam. She knows Alexis has always had to nag him, and it makes sense he'd set up the usual things around his birthday. She might even know that. The odds are good that he's complained about it for four years running.

So he wasn't hiding anything at first. Not deliberately. He missed it because they'd had other priorities. _After_. He missed it and would have rescheduled.

That much is straightforward. He might have even told her about it. But she doesn't really get the drawn out back-and-forth. That went on for days. Long enough that it's the first thing she knew he was hiding. That whatever it was upset him, and she doesn't get it.

She doesn't have to get it. Interrogation comes later and he'll answer. He'll fill in the gaps.

In the meantime, she has the glasses and a mystery. Something else she'll make him answer for.

Something the lingering fear would like to make him answer right now. To wake him up and make him answer, because she _knows_ he's not dying and there's some _stupid_ explanation, but she can't find it. She needs him for it. She needs him because she _knows_ it's not what she thinks and she's still afraid.

But she won't wake him up. Not for that.

She's getting to know the fear and she knows it's not going anywhere. There's no sense in waking him, because she's living with it now. As long as they're together, she'll be afraid of all the ways she might lose him.

Longer than that.

She sits up straight. _Longer than that._ The thought sits her up, straight and tall in his chair.

The insidious thought that she could run. Because she's thought about it, hasn't she? Even now—almost a year on—the thought has crossed her mind that she could run. She could run out on anniversaries and rings and things that hadn't occurred to her but should have.

She thinks she could pull the rug right out from under the fear. She could run. It still makes sense to a part of herself that she hates. A part of herself that she's worked hard to chip away at. For two years, she's worked to silence it. And she _has_. She has, mostly, but the thought is still there.

The solution to fear: She can't lose him if she doesn't have him.

It's _such_ bullshit. She knows it is.

 _You can't run from your own legs_.

It's something stupid her mother used to say. She'd said it a million times before Kate thought to ask. Before the teen years and total knowledge of everything set in and she thought to question it. And her mother had laughed. She'd just laughed and told her to think about it.

She never did. She never got around to it, really. She thinks about it now, though, and she thinks she knows.

Together or apart, she'll always be afraid of all the ways she might lose him.

She won't wake him because she's afraid. She'll ask, he'll answer, and it will help _that_ particular fear. _That_ particular moment.

But she'll always be afraid.

She won't wake him, because there's plenty to do. She has work. She has the glasses.

They're expensive. She knew that the minute she snatched them up from the sheets. There's no surprise there.

They're light. Light enough that she thinks most of the _thunk_ in the drawer must be the case. The lenses are thin and sturdy. It's either not much of a prescription or some fancy material. Both, she thinks. She slips them on herself and everything in the distance goes a little fuzzy. Just a little, though, and she knows it's both.

She slips them off again. The manufacturer's name on the inside of one stem leads her to a website and there's another phone number she recognizes. Everything they make is high end—incredibly high end. There was back and forth with them, too. More back and forth she doesn't quite get.

She clicks around the site. She can't find the frames. Not this exact shape and there's something about material that she's not finding in the samples. They're custom, she supposes, and the price tag must be even more ridiculous.

So maybe there were fittings or consultations or something? And he wasn't happy with them? That goes on the timeline alongside this particular phone number. It's right around the time she thought things might be going wrong with whatever he was planning.

So maybe the manufacturer screwed things up?

It's a possibility. It's tentative, though. A dotted line or something she might not waste a magnet on if this were a murder board.

He wasn't just annoyed. He was _unhappy_ after those phone calls. And stubborn. _They_ were calling _him,_ not the other way around. Another gap for the interrogation.

She weighs the glasses in her hand. She watches the way the sleek brushed metal catches the light and admires the elegance of the not-quite-right angles. They're well made. They're sharp.

He probably looks good in them. She has an image. Sudden and certain. The kind of image that begs for capital letters. She _knows_ he looks good in them and she wants to wake him up and answer that. It's not a question at all and she wants to make him answer it anyway.

It carries her to the bedroom door again. She wants it badly enough that she crosses the threshold and thinks about climbing over him. Stripping the covers back. Making her body a cage over his and demanding answers.

He's face down with one arm stretched across the expanse of bed where she should be. The other arm reaches up over his head and his fingers disappear under the headboard. Like he's holding on to sleep for dear life.

She wants him. She wants to _kill_ him, too, but it's not like those things have ever been mutually exclusive with them.

Right now, the wanting wins. It rolls through her in a sinuous wave buoyed up on relief and fury and the conviction that he looks _good_ in glasses.

Something about it snaps another piece into place. Into focus. The juxtaposition of sharp desire and him heavy in repose.

He wears them.

Her memory replays the reliable sequence. The spring lock squeaking him closing the drawer with a heavy, panicked hand, and the _thunk._ He wears them. Just not around her.

Because he's vain? He is. He's _painfully_ vain and most of the near-death experiences he's had in the last year have been vanity related. He makes them late with his primping and fussing and she _hates_ being late.

But it's not just that. Vanity alone doesn't make sense.

He has good taste. She's loath to feed his ego about that, but he dresses well. He has a good eye for what works and what doesn't. Colors and cuts and fabric that adds breadth to his shoulders and makes the best of the fact that he's gotten a little softer around the middle since she's known him.

The glasses look good. They're elegant and well made. The shape and material are right for his face. She knows he looks good in them. She knows it's not just vanity. There's more, but it's like she can't quite see it out of the corner of her eye.

She takes another step into the room. Curiosity more than fear carrying her forward now.

He stirs just then. His chin lifts toward the door—toward her—and he frowns. She holds her breath, but his head drops again. One hand casts about blindly until he finds her pillow. He wraps an arm around it and pulls it to him. He inhales and the frown evaporates. He sinks back into sleep.

She retreats. She retraces her steps back into the office. Back behind the desk. She won't wake him yet. There's still the mystery.

There's still work to do.

* * *

She almost kills him and it's completely unintentional. It's almost completely unintentional.

The work runs out long before he wakes and she's alone with the fear for . . . she doesn't know how long. She closed the laptop a while ago and she's been spending quality time with the fear.

She topples worry after worry with logic and reason and Lanie's voice in her head, but the fear isn't going anywhere.

She sits with it while it spins up into worry and she knocks that down, because nothing the fear can come up with makes any sense of things she doesn't understand. It doesn't make sense of the gaps in the story.

She looks up when she hears it. His first shuffling footstep. It's like she's expecting him. Like she's expecting his broad shoulders filling the doorway and the curse when his hip smacks against the jamb.

She lifts her head and sees him, and the question seems obvious. Like he's been having this conversation the whole time. "Why neurologists?"

But he hasn't been having it the whole time. To him, she's a sudden voice in the dark. _Just_ a voice in the dark, maybe.

He screams. Not quite _screams_ , but it's a tight, terrified, high-pitched thing. He smacks into the other side of the doorway and rattles the bookshelf on that side.

"Kate," he manages eventually. He sags against the door with a hand to his chest. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

It's not funny. Obviously. It's not meant to be. But she's been sitting alone too long with the fear and it pisses her off. This isn't going well. It's not going how she imagined it. She's _pissed_.

There's moonlight coming in through the window. She sees his face clearly, whether he can see her or not. She sees him waking and the worry coming back. He half remembers the glasses. It hurts to see it. It hurts to see the good the rest has done him flee and the worry creeping in, but she's pissed enough to let it.

"You're not dying, Castle. There's nothing really wrong, so why neurologists?"

He takes another step and another and he's working on a story. Another stupid story because he thinks he might still get out of this.

She knows the moment he sees her face. He blinks and swallows hard and she knows the moment he meets the fear. She introduces him to it.

"Dying?" He laughs. It's hollow and nervous and she fixes him with a level stare. He's hardly awake and it's really not fair, but she's been alone too long with fear and he still thinks he might get out of this. "I'm not . . . why would you think I was dying?"

She grabs the phone from its cradle and holds it up. The handset of the house phone. She calls up the log and reads off three different numbers. Several calls back and forth over more than a week. All of them at odd times, each one just a few minutes.

"Kate. I'm not . . ." He glances back at the bed, then down at his hands. He's wondering where the glasses are and she lets him. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just . . ."

He's closing in on the desk now. His fingers brush the corner and memory flares between them. He meets her eyes and she knows he sees her breath hitch. He hears the sound she barely makes. A little of the worry goes and heat moves in to take its place. He thinks he might still get out of this.

She jerks back in the chair. That is _not_ happening. Not before the interrogation. Not before they have this out.

She's out from behind the desk before either of them realizes it. Her hands slam down on his shoulders and she's pushing him back and back. Away from The Desk.

The backs of his knees hit the seat of one of the arm chairs and he dumps into it. He blinks up at her and tries to say her name again. She cuts him off.

She slaps the glasses on the arm of the chair.

"They're just _glasses,_ " she hisses.

His hand shoots out. He grabs the glasses in fingers so fierce she's sure he must be crushing them. His face changes utterly. He knows now. He knows he won't get out of it.

"Put them on."

She's looming over him in the chair. Her voice is low and dangerous. He never fights her when she's like this. He never resists, and she's not expecting it. His head snaps up and he's _furious_ and she's not expecting it.

"No," he snarls. His fist cocks back like he's going to hurl the glasses as far away as he can.

He's fast, but she's faster. He's furious, but she's been sitting in the dark with the fear for who knows how long. She grabs his wrist and twists. The glasses fall into her other palm and she holds them out to him again.

"Castle. Put them on, _now_."

Each word comes down hard between them and they're left staring. A standoff. She watches his jaw twitch. She watches him fighting with _something_. One of the things she doesn't understand and she's so _pissed_.

She makes . . . some kind of sound. She doesn't know what, but it decides him. He grabs her hand and has to pry the glasses out of her fingers. It does't make a whole lot of sense, but she's _pissed_ and not much does. He keeps hold of her with one hand while he snaps the stems open and shoves the glasses on to his face with the other.

"Happy?" He jerks his chin up. He turns his face from side to side in the moonlight in a grim, pissed off parody of some modeling pose. "Happy, Kate?"

Happy is not really the word for it. They look good on him. He looks good in them. And good is really, _really_ not the word for it.

Physically, he's always done it for her. Always. She's never thought of herself as having a type, but the evidence has been building up over the last four years. She has a type, and it's Richard Castle. She loves his build and his body, broad and strong. Exactly eye-to-eye when she's in heels and looming over her when she's not.

She loves the easy mobility of his face. The heavy brows and the strong chin. Masculine at rest and boyish when he smiles. She loves the combination.

He's not smiling now and there is nothing— _nothing_ —boyish about him. The glasses hit just below his brows and strengthen the line. They're rimless underneath, but the square silhouette emphasizes the angle of his jaw and sharp slash of his cheekbones. He looks smart and wicked and unbelievably furious. Unbelievably hot.

It makes her remember every argument they've ever had. How they've pushed and one-upped each other for years and the way her mind spins up and her heart pounds and she feels alive. The way arguing with him makes her feels like she's really walking in the world like she hasn't since she was nineteen.

She remembers every drawn-out syllable he's ever used to tell her about her body. About the way she makes him feel.

 _Good_ is really not the word for it.

"Um." She licks her lips. _Um_ is not the word for it, either, but it's all her brain has right now and she has the faint, distant sense she's in trouble.

She is. The corner of his mouth quirks up. He jerks her toward him. Throws her off balance and her free hand comes down on the arm of the chair.

Something like a moan might make its way out of her. Something like a moan, because he's smiling. He's _kind of_ smiling and that usually saves her. It brings out the boy in his face and it mixes something fond and sloppy with the want. But there's nothing boyish about him now. Nothing boyish and there's only _want._

"Happy, Kate?" he says again. His fingers tangle in her hair and he pulls her mouth to his.

She loses her footing. Her shins come down against the edge of the chair and she starts to fall, but his arm is there, hooking around her waist. He tugs her into his lap with her knees on either side of his thighs.

Her hands rake through his hair and she fights back with her mouth and her hips rising and falling over his. She presses him into the leather and surges up, still kissing him. His head drops back, following. She pulls away and looks down at him through heavy lashes. It's a great idea and a terrible mistake, because _Jesus_ he looks good in those glasses.

Her mouth drops to his again and it's fierce and combative and hot.

His hands are busy and undecided. He's working at her buttons one minute and coaxing her hips into a rhythm the next. His fingers rough over the press of her nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt and dive underneath to find skin. And all the while she's kissing him like it's forbidden. Like they might get caught and it's like nothing ever before. Not The Incident. Not his A game. Not _after_. Nothing ever before.

He gets her shirt off somehow. The chill loft air and the heat of his hands drive her into him. She can't get close enough and something about being like this—half naked and at his mercy—that winds her even higher.

He knows. He knows and he moves in for the kill. He tears his mouth away from hers and drags his tongue down her throat. He scrapes his teeth over the inside notch of each collarbone and one hand works its way between her legs while the other jerks one bra strap down her shoulder.

He sucks hard at the top of her breast and just catches skin between his teeth. It's sharp and painful and her head falls back. Her spine arches and she presses closer to his mouth.

His fingers curve over her, and his thumb unerringly finds her clit through the tight denim. He presses and moves in relentless circles and she comes, swift and sudden and fierce.

He pulls his mouth away from her breast. She's high above him, tall and straight and staring down. He tilts his head to the side, curious and interested, and the want rises up again like she's not still shivering from what he just did to her. Like she's not limp and wordless.

She slides off him. She pushes her hips backward with a ridiculous effort and slithers to the floor. He says her name. It's dark and warning and he reaches for her. He wants her back in his lap and her skin burns with defiance. She twists away from his hands and forces a shoulder between his knees. She drops her head and drags her cheek over the hard bulge under the soft flannel of his pajama pants.

He gets a hand under her jaw and tries to pull her head back. She turns on him. She snaps and catches her thumb between her teeth, a little too hard. She runs her tongue over the pad of it. Traces the indentations of her own teeth, then sucks hard on the tip of it. It's a preview of things to come and he's no match for it. He gives in.

She smiles and drops a kiss on the back of his retreating hand. She slides a hot palm up his thigh and laughs as he tries to bite back a groan. Tries and fails as she slides her fingers inside the flap of the pants and pulls him into her waiting mouth.

She slides her lips just over the head and her eyes flick up. He's watching her. Eyes wide open and the glasses make him a different man. Her hips push forward without her consent and her mouth pops free. She wants to kiss him. She almost does. She almost climbs back into his lap and gives up on this. But he looks relieved and she just can't have that. She drops back on to her own heels and her mouth sinks all the way down.

His hands leave her hair and find a white-knuckled grip on the arms of the chair. His nails bite into the leather and the scent fills her nostrils and it drives her on. Her hand wraps around the base of him and squeezes. She sucks and dives and pulls free and teases him with her tongue. He's swearing and incoherent and she blazes hot and blue inside.

For a minute, the last of the fear leaves her and there's nothing but triumph and want.

She doesn't know what happens then. There's white sound rushing in her ears and bruising fingers banding around her arms. She's on her back on the floor and he's peeling her jeans down her legs, brutal and urgent.

She chokes out his name and she thinks he might tell her to shut up. It's so unlikely, but she's pretty sure it's true and she thinks she'll have something to say about that later. _Later_ when he's not driving into her. When he's not devouring her and making her eyes roll back in her head with hot, filthy words in her ear. When her whole body isn't clamping around his until it hurts and he just keeps going. He just keeps going.

 _Later_. She'll have something to say about that later.

* * *

He's crushing her. He's heavy enough that she wonders if he's falling asleep. He's crushing her into the thick pile of the rug, but he doesn't seem inclined to move. She's not inclined to make him.

His breath is hard and ragged against her shoulder. She strokes her hands over his shoulder blades as he comes down. He's crushing her and she feels . . . powerful. She drops her lips to his temple and he jerks back suddenly.

His hand comes up and he hooks a finger around the stem of the glasses. She grabs his wrist and their eyes meet. They're both still a little angry. Maybe more than a little.

"They're just glasses," she says. She lets his wrist go.

He pulls them off and rolls on to his side. Her chest expands and she's sorry. She's sorry she said it.

He folds the stems in and sets them somewhere above her head. Out of reach. Out of sight.

"I hate them." It's quiet.

Anyone else might say it's calm. Anyone who didn't know him would hear the even tone and say it's calm. But she knows him. She knows about the quiet and the way it means he's knotted up inside. She knows what it means, but she doesn't get it. She doesn't get any of this. They're just glasses.

"They hurt my nose." His fingers brush between his eyebrows absently like they're tracing over half-remembered indentations. "And my ears . . . my ear."

He stops. His fingers have moved on now. They're tugging at the top of one ear and the nails are raking through his hair. He jerks his hand down and looks at it as if it's a traitor.

Maybe it is. His hands always tell her things he'd rather she didn't know.

"They're not the same height," she says. She's quiet, too, like she's trying not to scare him off. She is, she supposes. She's trying. "They don't sit right because your left ear's higher."

His head tips up swiftly. He's unhappy. He's squirming and mortified. _Vanity._ Whatever else is going on, that's vanity. She can't help rolling her eyes at it.

"Do you know how many descriptions of people I given in a week, Castle? How many I listen to?" Her volume creeps up. She's not angry. She _is_ angry. But that's it. Not right now. She's . . . surer.

They need to have this out. She's done the work. She knows some of what's going on and she needs to know the rest. She _will_ know it, and if he won't say it—if he won't just tell her what's going on—she will. She goes on.

"Do you think that I've never noticed that one of your ears is _very slightly_ higher than the other? Do you think I haven't noticed that everyone has one ear that's slightly higher than the other? That their eyes aren't quite level or one . . ." She sputters, exasperated. "One _nostril_ is rounder than the other?"

He claps his hand over his nose, hard enough that it has to hurt.

"Your nostrils are _fine_ , Castle." She wants to shake him. "So your face isn't perfect. Nobody's face is perfect."

"Yours is."

 _Shut up._ That's what she wants to say. What she wants to scream and she's about to, but he's so quiet. She's already practically shouting and he's _quiet_ and she knows what that really means. She knows what it means and she doesn't know what to say next.

"Castle . . ." It's the only thing that will come out.

He reaches for the glasses again. He turns them over and over. He's staring up, but he doesn't see them. "I'm older than you."

And there it is. Barely audible.

It's not even unexpected, though she wouldn't say she knew it.

They're just glasses, but they're not.

"You're older than me," she repeats. Because he's not saying anything. Because there are a thousand things she wants to say and she's pretty sure they're all wrong. Anything she says right now will be wrong. "So what?"

It slips out. She definitely knows _that's_ wrong, but it slips out and then she can't stop herself. "I know you're older than me. You've always _been_ older than me and _so what?"_

"I'm a _lot_ older than you," he snaps and the words start coming then. "A _lot_ older and I need glasses and like fifty lights on just to read anything and my kid is almost old enough to drink and my knee hurts all the time."

He drops his forehead to her shoulder. "And your face is perfect."

She laughs. A hard, breathy chuckle that hurts under the tightness in her chest. But she laughs. It's so unexpected. The outburst, over as soon as it started, and that. I's not so quiet. It's heavy and worried and _sad_ , but it's not so quiet. It's a knot, loosening. In him and in her.

"You scared the hell out of me." She swallows and stares up at the ceiling. "Neurologists?"

"I'm sorry," he whispers against her neck with quick kisses. "I never thought you'd know."

He _is_ sorry. He's contrite and appalled. And he really never thought she'd know. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She's tired and not sure it's worth fighting them.

He hears it. He feels her shoulders shaking and he tries to moves away. He squirms and she goes after him. She wraps an arm tight around him.

"You scared me," she says again.

He's sorry. He whispers that he's sorry again and he tells her. He tells her his side of it. It's not an interrogation. It's the two of them wrapped around each other in the dim moonlight. Freezing and stiff and unwilling to move. Unwilling to let go until they're finished with this.

He tells her that it scared him, too. That it seemed like it started all of a sudden. Head aches and knots in his neck. Bumping into things and needing light all of a sudden. And then he couldn't sleep and it all got worse. It scared him and then it turned out that it's common. It's common and that was so much worse.

"Age-related presbyopia." There's a grim humor underneath the words. "Isn't that, like, the worst name for anything ever?"

"Well, I thought you were dying," she says dryly. "So it sounds ok to me."

"I'm sorry, Kate." He hides his face in her hair. "I'm sorry. I wanted it to be something else. I wanted them to check for something else."

She nods. She keeps her mouth shut. She's still angry. She's angry all over again. They're just glasses and he's so _stupid_.

She keeps her mouth shut, but he knows anyway. He knows and he gives her a gift.

"They all told me I was stupid, you know. The other two wouldn't even see me once I had the file from the first doctor sent over."

"You should have told me." She knots her fingers in his hair and her nails bite into his shoulder. She can't keep her mouth shut any more. "You shouldn't have been scared alone. Neither of us should be scared alone."

"I know," he says over and over. He runs his hand over her shoulders and says it again and again.

The fear washes back again. His skin against hers and his words in her hair make it better. They make this better and fear recedes for now and there are other things they need to talk about. She's tired all of a sudden with all the things they should probably be talking about and she's abruptly aware that it's cold. That she's cold and so is he and she just wants to be in bed with him.

He senses it. The shiver on her skin and the way her shoulders fall a little. He moves her in his arms. He's about to get up. He's about to take her to bed and she wants to let him, but her mouth opens and another thing spills out. Another thing they need to talk about.

"I want you to get old," she blurts. "I want you to be older next year and I'll be older, too. And the year after that. I want that."

Her cheeks are burning. It's not how she planned on starting this conversation. She didn't plan on starting it all. Not tonight. Maybe not anytime soon. But she can't help thinking about it.

Lanie and Ryan teasing. Esposito letting them. About the fact that everyone thinks it's a ring. That they'll all be looking at them tomorrow and wondering and they're not _there_ yet. He's not either, really. Even if he's thought about it. Even if he does anniversary presents and he's thought about it, they're not _there._

But they should be closer. She wants to be closer and he's not saying anything, so she does.

"I want to be there while you get old."

"I think you're in luck, Beckett." He smiles. He smiles hard and without the glasses he's all little boy. He kisses her and murmurs against her lips. "I'm not dying, so I think you're in luck."


End file.
